$30 million gift to U-M will keep on giving

By LEKAN OGUNTOYINBO

June 29, 2000 Web posted at: 10:21 AM EDT (1421 GMT)

ANN ARBOR, Michigan (Detroit Free Press) -- After earning business and law degrees from the University of Michigan in the late 1940s and early '50s, Lincoln Knorr kept his involvement with his alma mater to a minimum.

Save for gifts of about $1,000 to the university each year, he made little contact. Knorr, who died in October 1998, served on no alumni committees, marched in no homecoming parades.

That's why his recently announced gift of more than $30 million stunned school officials and his family.

"We didn't have him on our radar screen," said Gordon Beeman, assistant general counsel of the University of Michigan.

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Knorr's donations, which total $33 million, will be held in two trusts administered by Bank One.

Under the terms of the first trust, valued at $30 million, the university will be paid five percent of the trust's market value each year. When the payments and the bulk of the trust total $1 billion, all of the money will be transferred to the university. The money will then be placed in the university's endowment fund, which is valued at about $3 billion.

The second trust, valued at $3 million, will be used to provide income to his 99-year-old mother. Upon her death, the income will be turned over to his brother Keith Knorr. When he dies, the account will be given to the university.

"It's a very unusual gift, because the real impact on the university is so far in the future," said Susan Feagin, vice president for development at the University of Michigan.

In talks with Knorr's mother, Feagin said she learned that he desired to give the money "to the university, because this was where he could make the greatest impact on the most people."

Ernestine Knorr, his sister-in-law, described Knorr as a personable man with a nice sense of humor. But he was also a workaholic, she said.

"He worked Saturdays and Sundays," she said in an interview from her home in Torrance, Calif. "When he got home from work, he was very tired. He had his dinner, watched a little TV and fell asleep. His main interest was his business and his work."

She could not recall any conversations in which the university came up, she said, adding that the gift surprised her as well.

Knorr's donation is one of the largest monetary gifts the university has received. In recent years, U-M has received $30 million each from local business tycoons Al Taubman and Bill Davidson.

But university officials pointed out that the Taubman and Davidson gifts will be given to the university during a 5-year period. The Knorr donation is a long-term trust that should be worth about $1 billion in 30 to 40 years.

There are no restrictions on how the money can be spent. The only stipulation is that consideration be given to the colleges of business and law, Beeman said.

Knorr, who was born in 1924, practiced little law but was a successful businessman. He was cofounder and partner of Scott Equipment Co., a Detroit company that manufactured machinery for commercial binderies. The company is still in business.

Knorr never married and had no children.

"He was a very private man," Beeman said.

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